Labille-Guiard , pastel , portraiture. By some way the most ambitious work in pastel by Mme Labille-Guiard, [1] Mme Mitoire et ses enfants pastel; private collection has attracted a great deal of critical attention while a number of basic facts have remained unresearched or incorrect until now.
Nor shall I analyse the striking visual accomplishment of this composition with complexities that are seldom required in the world of pastel. The pastel was first exhibited in the salon of Pour celui de Mad. He however is ready to dissociate himself from the criticism of the colouring:.
We will return to his identity, and that of his brother, below. We can complete the provenance with a few tools that may not have been available to Passez or Auricchio. There it was also photographed in its neoclassical frame, which may well have been original, although it is no longer present. Duveen Brothers stock photographs and records, It was sent on consignment soon after on 3. In any case, by it was back on the market, consigned anonymously by Duveen? Cailleux bought it, apparently through Percy Moore Turner, and included it in a spectacular exhibition of French eighteenth century pastels in But who was the elder child?
He was also seigneur de Clichy-la-Garenne. I doubt if we will ever know for certain whether the relationship was closer than that. We note too that the year-old Christine Somis, Mme Van Loo was the marraine to her great-grandson.
We do know what happened to the boy, as he died in Martinique aged 36, his profession being described as marchand modiste:. Despite exhibiting in the Paris salon in from Paris, rue des Tournelles, during a temporary visit home and in from St Petersburg , he is omitted from most art reference works. Cuzin records him as a pupil of Vincent, enrolled during messidor and thermidor an IV i. June—August He was in fact a prolific portraitist in oil and miniature and is represented in the Hermitage and other Russian museums , having emigrated, obtained Russian citizenship and married a Russian — presumably the Annette-Marguerite Berg recorded in the Paris index cards for his death, which took place in Paris, rue Notre Dame des Champs, on An inventaire was taken on 3.
